It's April 6, 2020: Checking In on Germinating Tomatoes

The first sixteen varieties are up! The ones we started on March 26 are already developing a second set of true leaves; I'm sold on the T5 growlights so far, even though I've always had very good results with inexpensive shop lights.

Most years I tend to focus on unusual varieties, especially those with an Appalachian background, no matter how temperamental or lackluster the yield as long as they taste good. This year, however, I need to focus on canning tomatoes to maintain my family's own food stores, so I've planted open-pollinated varieties with the yield and disease levels of many super-bred hybrids. I've also planted at least one landrace, Placero, a small, seedy, fat red tomato with great taste that hails from Mexico.

I admit I planted some of my heirlooms: Depp's Pink Firefly, Butler Skinner, Rose Beauty, Queen Aliquippa, Maruskin's Andes.

But I also planted two of the first heirlooms I ever got my hands on, thanks to Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in Mineral, Virginia, back in 1988: Heinz 1350 and Yellow Bell. Heinz 1350 is a red salad and canning tomato that throws 4-7 ounce fruits in clusters. Yellow Bell is a yellow paste tomato from east Tennessee that has no idea when to stop putting out sweet fat pear-shaped tomatoes a little bit bigger than a Roma.

This is the first year for Moneymaker, an English heirloom from 1913, and several others like Homestead 24. The latter is certainly eager to get started - both flats that I've started were the first to germinate, coming up in less than four days from seeding.

I'm trying two new paste tomatoes, San Marzano Short-Vine and Rio Grande, as well as a very short (but not dwarf) paste tomato called Martino's Roma, which was heavily productive and very good tasting fresh in salads when I first grew it a few years ago. 

My big surprise this year? My husband John loves Jaune Flammee, one of the most beautiful and productive heirlooms of all time. It's a beautiful golden orb of a salad tomato that glows like the sunrise and tastes like heaven, and it's another heavy producer, throwing 3 to 7 salad-sized four-ounce fruits in tresses. Here's the surprise - I started seed I had saved back in 2012. Not in the freezer. Not in the fridge. In a paper packet in my office - and it looks like they'll all germinate. Now that's what I call a survivor...

Join me at the YouTube clip below for more information about what to do when your tomatoes germinate, how to water, and how to use chamomile tea to prevent fungal and bacterial diseases before they get started.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ8WnInTXn0